In defense of Rob McKenna: Don’t put coal in his stocking

Our state’s environmental groups frequently constitute an “Amen Corner” for the Democrats. Lately, they’ve used a legal brief in a bid to put coal in the stocking of any future political ambitions for ex-Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna, loser in last year’s close gubernatorial election.

“Tell Rob McKenna to stop working for coal interests and stand up for the health of Washingtonians today,” intoned Washington Conservation Voters, which spent in the six-figures to elect Gov. Jay Inslee. The Sierra Club’s Northwest office has churned out anti-McKenna boilerplate.

Rob McKenna: Democrats are trying to put coal in his stocking, if he tries a political comeback. (Cliff DesPeaux for Seattlepi.com)

McKenna’s alleged crime is that he is representing a client of his law firm in a regulatory action.

He is now a partner in the Orrick law firm and head of the Public Policy Group in its Seattle office. The Orrick client list includes the states of Montana and North Dakota. Montana has a Democratic governor and a Republican attorney general. The state is eager to find a market for its coal. Then-Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a populist Democrat, came out to Longview to promote an export terminal.

In support of Millennium Bulk Terminals, which wants to build the Longview coal port, McKenna has written a legal brief on behalf of the two inland states. It takes issue with Inslee for ordering an “unrealistically broad” evaluation of the proposed Gateway Pacific coal terminal at Cherry Point north of Bellingham.

Inslee has been cheered, and justifiably so, for telling the Department of Ecology to look at a wide range of coal port impacts, from long trains disrupting working waterfronts to fueling coal power plants in pollution-choked China. China now leads the world in greenhouse gas emissions.

Inslee and Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber want President Obama to order the White House Council on Environmental Quality to examine whether America’s best interests would be served by a big coal export market. Will huge coal mines rip up public lands in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana? Would exports gum up other parts of the economy? Would the public be saddled with a big bill for infrastructure? Is there an impact on climate?

Folks out here on the “Left Coast” want those questions answered — this writer included. So do a fair number of Montana ranchers fearful for their land. The statehouses, however, are pro-coal. They want an environmental review tightly focused on the port sites.

Hence, as a lawyer for Montana and North Dakota, McKenna wrote this to the Army Corps of Engineers, the Ecology Department and Cowlitz County:

“Congress has not authorized states to regulate interstate commerce in relation to climate change, and has not enacted national legislation to control greenhouse gas emissions indirectly by limiting the sale or export of coal.”

As well, McKenna added, his clients “do not believe that the tremendous breadth of the Cherry Point scoping decision was legally justified.”

Rob McKenna is not stating Rob McKenna’s opinions. McKenna is representing the clients of his law firm. McKenna is not a “lobbyist,” as one report alleged. He is working as an attorney.

During their careers, all competent lawyers will find themselves representing clients with which they disagree — even detest. They will undertake criminal defense for people (or corporations) they privately believe to be guilty. They will negotiate legal settlements to extract clients from their misdeeds.

Legal representation is a right. As an attorney, whatever his own opinion, Rob McKenna is ethically obliged to devote his best professional work to the interests of Montana and North Dakota. The clients define what those interests are. They hire lawyers and are entitled to be competently represented.

A coal train: Montana and North Dakota want to send lots of them our way.

The states of Montana and North Dakota apparently do not evoke conflicts of interest with any other clients that McKenna is representing.

McKenna is taking a lot of guff.

State Rep. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, said in a Facebook post that McKenna is “suing Washington,” and argues that his brief was “as stunning a political miscalculation as opposing marriage equality.” Collin Jergens, of Fuse Washington, added: “I wouldn’t be quite so eager to fight my home state on behalf of North Dakota and Montana, much less on something that would pollute our communities and clog our streets.”

While having a high opinion of these guys, I detect manufactured, partisan outrage.

McKenna and Inslee both fudged the coal port issue in 2008, with rhetoric about rigorous environmental review and (in McKenna’s case) “cumulative impacts analysis.” Inslee had a narrow ridge to navigate, with labor on one side and greens on the other.

Politics ain’t beanbag. Rob McKenna is a private citizen, but he remains a viable candidate for Governor or U.S. Senate. He has won two statewide elections, as a Republican, in years when Democrats were winning in battles for the White House, statehouse and Senate.

As a lawyer, however, he has professional obligations: He will argue, negotiate and write briefs to advance interests of his clients. Does that make him such a bad guy?